


Good Morning, Neighbor

by ferric



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: AU Where, M/M, because it's funny if Levi is in fandom?, lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 14:49:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2195889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferric/pseuds/ferric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi did not like room 413. Levi was dismayed to find out that 413 was Eren Yeager. The Eren Yeager who wrote Attack on Titan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Morning, Neighbor

 

 

Contrary to Erwin or Hanji’s belief, Levi was not a self-righteous snob just because he refused to subject himself to the preposterous phenomenon that was Attack on Titan, a five-seasons-too-long series on HBO. Levi’s initial excuse was that he didn’t have cable, but after having Mike as a roommate for two years and was forced to split the extra cost for cable, he straight out declared his disdain for all thing popular even though he secretly listened to pop radio on his way to work.  

Apparently he was missing out on the most amazing show in the history of mankind, and apparently it was so good because no one knew who was going to die next. You would think that eventually the series would end with all the characters dead, but no, the creator kept bringing in new ones. 

So Levi continued being ignorant of the show except for the spoilers he couldn’t avoid because Erwin and Hanji kept talking about it.  _“Annie is the Female Titan??” “What? How could you not see it coming?”_  And these were enough for Levi to follow his coworkers’ conversations until they asked him about the specifics, which he then admitted that he didn’t watch it nor care much for Marco’s very tragic death.

Levi didn’t care for the show before but he grew to hate it because everyone wouldn’t shut up about it, until one day being snowed in at the office, he was subjected to the horror of an episode via Petra’s laptop combined with an unhealthy amount of boredom.

Levi hated to admit it, but  _it was good_.

As a result he might have finished all of five seasons throughout the next two weeks and might have sported bags under his eyes because of it. But it was absolutely worth it to see Haruma Miura’s gorgeous face on the screen, and yes he was eight years younger than Levi and his character was half Levi’s age, but not even that could stop him from devouring every fic on AO3 featuring the Jaeger/Captain ship plus all the posts on fuckyeahshortemper-dot-tumblr-dot-com. And it certainly did not stop him from angrily crushing any other Jeager ship because he belonged to the nameless Captain, damn it. The day that abominable cowboy ship ( _haha_ , Jaeger/Horseface= cowboy, very clever) or that ghost bride ship (Captain/A subordinate who only lasted a handful of episode but everyone thought it was implied that they were engaged) sailed was the day Levi ripped out the entirety of the internet with his bare hands, impossibility be damned.

In fact, if anyone read the books they would know that Jaeger/Captain was completely canon.

Levi would like a word with the creator of the show and the books it was based on, Eren Yeager, about this, but alas, the creator was a mystery. He never made any public appearances; there were no pictures of him ever taken, and he refused every interview offers out there. After five years of fruitless hoping the fandom had given up on his appearance at Comic Con, even the one in New York City where Eren was rumored to live.

Levi had imagined many times about how he might bump into Eren right down the street. Eren was probably as old as him if not older, tall, handsome, with a week-old stubble and hollow eyes from locking himself in his room writing, strong jaw, and—

So perhaps Levi had thought about this far more than he should.

A loud thump from upstairs startled Levi from his musing. He glared at the ceiling as a series of clanging followed, silently wishing that the power of his glare could somehow pierce through the layer of flooring and wood and hit his noisy neighbor in the face. Levi had never met this person because he didn’t care to interact with his neighbors and he skipped all the building monthly meetings, but he imagined this person to be someone extremely annoying whose life goal was to cause as much inconvenience as possible for all around him.

After another series of hammering, Levi decided that he needed to go for a run anyway. Hopefully the nuisance upstairs would stop when he got back.  

He left his apartment just as the place upstairs became completely quiet, but decided to keep going with his plan just to be safe. Blood Stain Child blasted through his headphones as the elevator pinged. A young man with messy hair and T-shirt damped at the collar smiled weakly at him as he stepped in. The ground floor was already pressed, so he occupied himself with stepping as far from the stranger as possible because the kid reeked of sweat.

Unfortunately, the kid was one of those social types. He turned to Levi to say something, but Levi couldn’t hear him through the screaming.

“What?” Levi asked as he took off his headphones.

“I said, my name is Eren,” Eren stuck out a hand. Levi shook it warily. “I just moved in to 413.”

“Levi,” Levi said. “313.” He may or may not have given Eren a dirty look.

“Ah.” Eren looked embarrassed, scratching the back of his neck as he pulled his hand away. “I’m sorry for the racket. The previous tenant left a bit of a mess and broke an in-wall bookshelf that I’ve been trying to fix.”

“That sucks,” Levi said, sympathy washed away his previous annoyance. “I’m sure if you call Nile, he’ll get it fixed for you. The previous tenant at my place took the oven and the microwave that came with the apartment, and I had to call Nile about it.”

“Nile isn’t going to be in town for the next five months,” Eren said. “Besides, I have a lot of books and I need the extra bookshelf. It’s not too much work; it’s just hard because I don’t have a lot of tools with me aside from a hammer.”

“I could lend you some stuff if you want.” Levi shrugged. “My dad worked in construction and he gave me a set of everything you can possibly want to build your own house.”

“That would be great.” Eren’s face broke into a relieved grin. It was only then that Levi noticed Eren was quite easy on the eyes, and before Levi’s obsession with fictional characters, Eren would have been his type. “Thank you so much. I was actually going out to buy tools, but now I guess I don’t have to. I don’t know how I could repay you.”

“Don’t bother; it’s not like I use that stuff anyway. I have to go out for a run, but I’ll bring the stuff to you later?”

“That’s great. Thanks!”

Levi gave Eren one last friendly wave before they parted ways.

Levi was not as in-shape as he was two years ago when he was training for the marathon, and being swamped with work meant that he couldn’t work on his cardio as much as he used to, but his schedule wasn’t too bad now so he could get right back to the rhythm. The run got him in a considerably better mood, and as a result he almost looked forward to more interaction with his neighbor as he dug out the tool box from a hallway closet.

Eren welcomed him with a smile, his door wide open for Levi to see the sprawling mess and the scatter of boxes all over the living room.

“Thanks,” Eren said, taking the box from Levi. He then followed Levi’s gaze to the bookshelf that he was trying to fix and winced. “Yeah, I know it looked terrible, but I’m working on it.”

Levi looked at the bookshelf, silently assessing the damage and Eren’s progress. “Need help? My dad taught me a thing or two about building things, and this is pretty simple for me.”

“It certainly is not simple for me,” Eren said. “I don’t want to keep you from your day, but it would be nice to have another pair of hands.”

“It’s fine. May I?” Levi gestured toward the bookshelf.

“Yeah, please come in.”

It turned out that Eren was shit at building things, and in the end he went off to get water while Levi worked at the bookshelf. It wasn’t hard. Levi built his own furniture when he was a teenager, and this bookshelf was pretty much child’s play.

He could feel Eren’s eyes burning his back as he worked.

“You’ll have to find another piece of wood to replace this piece here.” Levi gestured to the one piece that splintered into two halves. He wiped down the bookshelf with a Clorox cleanwipe in a container lying nearby. “Ask Auruo downstairs. He takes care of the wood and furniture recycling. You could probably find something there.”

“Thank you.” Eren handed him the glass of water. Levi took two big gulps, and he noticed Eren watching the bobbing of his throat as he did.

The attention was flattering, Levi had to admit. Eren watched the sweat trailing down Levi's collarbone, and his eyes snapped up to Levi’s face when Levi cleared his throat. “Would you mind me treating you to lunch as payment for your help?”

“If it’s a date, I’ll consider it.” Levi smirked. He definitely wasn’t going to turn down an opportunity if he was given one. Besides, free food.

“A date then.” Eren grinned, turning to open one of his boxes.

Levi finished the rest of his glass of water, content in watching Eren stacking up his books. Eren hadn’t kicked him out yet, and now that he was here he had the chance to appreciate Eren’s broad shoulders up close.

“What do you do for a living?” Eren asked.

“I work for an architectural firm,” Levi said.

“Ah, so you inherit your father’s knack for building things?” Eren was occupied with organizing the books on the shelf, but his attention was on Levi.

“I worked with my dad in construction for a while,” Levi answered. “But then I clashed with him over the direction of the company and decided to struck out on my own. He refused to speak to me for years until last month. You?”

“I’m a writer,” Eren said. “Not very exciting as you since I started writing young and my parents supported me through the entire process.”

“You don’t have to have to fight with your parents to be interesting,” Levi said. “Can’t imagine you had a smooth sailing with the publishing industry being what it is.”

“No.” Eren turned to Levi, his smile a lot warmer and genuine now. “I had a really rough start. No publisher would even look at my work, and it took years until I got an indie house to accept it. But it was so worth it when my work became successful enough to go back and wave my victory in the faces of the ones who rejected my work.”  

“What did you write?” Levi asked, although he silently kicked himself because he wasn’t much of a reader and was unlikely to recognize what Eren worked on. Way to impress a romantic interest, not really caring about their life’s passion.

Eren was silent at first. His eyes darted away for a second, perhaps in embarrassment, and Levi almost changed the conversation to save them from awkwardness until Eren looked him straight in the eyes and said, “I wrote the Attack on Titan series, if you’ve heard of it?”

Levi nearly dropped the glass in his hand. “Are you fucking with me?”

“If I was fucking with you, trust me, you’ll know,” Eren said gravely with enough lewdness in it for Levi to know he meant an entirely different meaning of fucking. But there was enough uncertainty there to tell Levi that Eren was anxious.

“You’re Eren Yeager?” Levi said incredulously. “Fuck, you’re _Eren Yeager_. Fuck.”

“Is it going to make things weird between us?” Eren winced.

“I need a moment to get over my shock,” Levi said. “Fuck, did you know that Attack on Titan series are the only books I’ve read since high school?”

Eren smiled. “That’s quite an honor.”

“You’re so young.” Levi couldn’t quite believe it. Eren Yeager. Eren fucking Yeager. “You’re probably younger than me. I certainly feel unaccomplished with my life now.”

“I’m twenty-five, thanks,” Eren said.

Levi did the math. “That means you began the series when you were only fifteen.”

Well  _fuck_.

Eren flushed. “I started writing early.”

Fuck. No fucking way.

Levi was suddenly struck with a horrifying thought that he could not tell Eren about the amount of fan fiction that he had read and written for Jaeger/Captain. Absolutely not. Nor could he tell Eren about the embarrassing amount of time that he spent on fandom and the body pillow of Jaeger that he had in his bedroom right now or the posters of shirtless Jaeger all over his walls. And the less Eren knew about the fuckyeahshortemper-dot-tumblr-dot-com the better.

“Are we—” Eren sounded uncertain. “Are we still up for lunch?”

“Yeah,” Levi shook his head, remembering that he was in fact going on a date with this ridiculously attractive man who was only the creator of his favorite series ever. He made a note to collapse in the privacy of his bedroom. “If you’re still interested, sure.”

“Of course.” Eren grinned, and for a moment Levi completely forgot about Attack on Titan and fan fiction and having a fangasm because Eren’s eyes were very,  _very_  green. Suddenly, life was looking a lot better.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Levi said and had to admit that he might have fallen in love with Eren’s smile just a bit.

 

 

 


End file.
